(BECMI) Adventures in Gulluvia #2 - A Veritable Invasion

6 Mai 543, Village of Mere, Barony of Gulluvia

Hugo Swam'pass' storytelling in the Ye Olde Falling Noble Spoon worked even better than he could have hoped for .  After telling his tale of his missing friend in the mines, Hugo managed to sway not just two industorious halfings, Beulah and Bodo, plus a mountain of a deranged woman in Slothina Hoppler. but a fourth individual caught up to them in the morning, a warrior named Conan DiPietro.  Assembled, they marched back to the Old Mentzer Gem Mine.

They ventured back to the mine and waylaid the goblins that killed/kidnapped Marleen Furribottom (Goblins all look the same, don't they?), but more goblins poured out from an unknown location. Slothina was forced to grab an unconscious Hugo and all three returned home to heal up.

Conan DiPietro

Next: #3 - The Short Tale of Rusty

(Kickstarter) Illuminati Confirmed by RadioFree.net

 Illuminati: New World Order (INWO) is my favorite collectible card game of all time.  Decades later, the boxes of cards are gone, but the appeal to play (and my "Chaos Locksmith" deck) is still there.  

Derek Pearcy, original creator of INWO, has now launched a Kickstarter through RadioFree.net for an updated computer game version of INWO.

While I can't confirm the Kickstarter allegations that games of INWO took 3+ hours (I think one game of the original Illuminati took four, usually we were bloodthirsty and efficient), I gratefully appreciate a program to do all the calculations, keeping track of changing alignments and bonuses.  

Thanks to the wonders of computers, changing alignments can now change the artwork on the cards.

My Gamified Self, Year Nine

Nine years in, and I continue to cobble together a gamified dream journal and translate them into character points for a GURPS (3rd Edition) version of myself I set up almost 30 years ago (The Red Dawn rip-off games were horrible... horribly awesome!)

I continue develop into Tom Arnold's character Albert Gibson in a post-True Lies timeline. 

ST: 10 DX: 11  IQ: 13  HT: 12

Advantages:  Charisma +2 (I'm a heckuva guy), Common Sense, Luck, Voice, Light Hangover (50)

Disadvantages:  Bloodlust, Near-Sightedness, Gluttony, Stubborness, Sense of Duty (Friends) (-35), Dependents (Family) Enemy: LDS Cabal

Skills:  Skills in bold received points, but not increase.  Bold with a (+) indicates an increase in skill.  New skills to the list for this year are in bold with (New).  Not exactly rocket sciences

Acrobatics   9 +

Accounting 11 
Acting 13 
Administration 20   + 
Animal Handling 11 
Anthropology 11 
Archaeology 10 
Area Knowledge: Baltimore 11
Area Knowledge: Iceland 13 
Area Knowledge: Lehigh Valley 14 
Area Knowledge: Michigan Upper Peninsula 11 
Area Knowledge: New York City 13 
Area Knowledge: South Africa 13 
Bard 20 (let me...entertain you!) 
Bicycling 11 
Boating 9 
Boxing 10 
Brawling 13 
Camouflage 14 
Carousing 12 
Climbing 10 
Club 11 
Computer Ops 13 
Conspiracy Theory 11
Cryptography  10
Dancing 10
Demolitions 12
Diplomacy 13 
Drive Tractor Trailer 11 
Drive: motorcycle 9 
Driving: Auto 14 
Driving: Diesel Locomotive 11 
Economics 12     +
Engineering 12 
English 14 
Fast Talk 13 
First Aid 13 
Forensics 12 
Forgery 10 
French 12 
Geology 10 
Guns: Pistol 14 
Guns: Rifle 14 
Guns: SMG 13 
Hiking 11 
History 17 
Hobby gaming 14 
Hobby: Models 12 
Intell Analysis 11 
Interrogation 11 
Judo 9 
Law 12 
Leadership 12
Literature 10 (New) 
Mathematics 10 
Mechanic 
Merchant 11
Meteorology 11
Naturalist 10 
Navigate 10 
Occultism 14 
Performance 13
Physician 
Politics 14 
Psychology 10 
Punning 11 
Running 13 
Savoir Faire 17 
Saxophone 12 
Scrounging 13 
Sex Appeal 15 
Sport: Basketball 10 
Sport: Football 9 
Sport: Golf 11
Sport: Ice Skating 8 
Sport:Volleyball 9 
Stealth 12 +
Strategy 11 +
Streetwise 11 
Survival: Mountains 12 
Survival: NBC 13 
Swimming 10 
Tactics 13 
Taxidermy 11 (New)
Theology 11  +
Wrestling 10 

It's amusing that I've had some incredibly deep sleep during these trying times, yet my dreams are almost pedestrian.  What originally was a secret agent continues to to turn into mid-level management, perhaps Assistant Director of Counter-Terrorism Analysis - Personnel, or perhaps still in Operations Support.  Those guys always have a weird hobby like Literature or Taxidermy or building a boat in their basement.  This year was a lot "normal" management activities, with just enough times for some hobbies.  With the increase in Acrobatics, I assume I dodged out of the way of some runaway car, and then the true heroes of the True Lies universe take over.

301 points.

Virtual SATLOF 2020!

Things are getting pretty bad out there.  I'm not a medical professional, but I get daily clinical updates due to my position.  Our issues are spreading throughout the community, the majority (80%)  of which are outside of nursing homes and the traditional comorbidities normally associated with the pandemic.  Heck, my alma mater (Easton)'s 114th annual Thanksgiving Day football game with Phillipsburg, New Jersey was outright cancelled.  The last time the two teams haven't played was 1912.  Yes, they played during the Spanish Flu. 

With that being said, it's no surprise that our annual Saturday After Thanksgiving Leftover Feast (SATLOF) is not occurring today.  Let's be serious, we're a pretty obnoxious folk that like to skirt the rules, and if we haven't been comfortable setting up face-to-face gaming since March, it would be ludicrous to have friends and loved ones from five different states converging on one site.  

All is not not lost, we're turning SATLOF virtual this year.  We're hoping to catch up with everyone via Skype, with a beverage in hand.  

Of course, I'm still "visiting" my mother today, albeit solo, and hopefully through a window.  She has a few outside tasks that I need to do, so I'll drop off some cards, a few new pictures of the kids, and get the house ready for winter.  I'm not stepping foot in the house.  I will have an opportunity to stop at some some shops on the way home (Trains and Lanes, Steel City Comics, The Portal) before arriving home with Wawa to celebrate SATLOF.

Black Friday Shoppers! Don't Get Your Game Requests Confused!

Last Few hours for the Legions of Steel Kickstarter

I didn’t realize it at the beginning of the campaign, but Legions of Steel Operation Anvil Kickstarter ends today, Thanksgiving (US), in just a few short hours. If they don’t get a few more backers, it appears to be coming up a bit short. 

Happy Thanksgiving

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